


Take It Back

by Kato



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M, Injury, Isolation, PTSD, Recovery, Therapy, flangst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3504035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kato/pseuds/Kato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Post 3x24.] They talked about it. Dr. Burke talked about it, anyway. Ways to get her life back. By life, of course, she means her job. It’s all she has left of her life anyway. But he wanted her to start taking things back. Reclaiming things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. all the courage of my fears

"Come on," she coaxes her half-broken body to push just an inch more, "come on…"

She feels something give, the wall of her chest feels as if it’s being shredded like pulled chicken with a fork. Her mouth opens to scream but she can’t force a sound out. Air’s all gone.

Kate angrily throws the black lace number that just won’t come on into the corner of her room, an angry sob of frustration escaping her. Glancing in her underwear drawer, she glares resentfully at her new bras. The ones the hospital and physical therapist have given her. They said that they’re usually for breast cancer patients.

They’re big. They’re universally beige. They’re… asexual.

She supposes she could just go without. It’s not like she’s seeing anyone today. It’s not like she’s seen anyone at all for… she doesn’t really want to think about it, really.

Her dad drove her to Dr. Burke on Tuesday and she congratulated herself sardonically at only ducking in the backseat for half the trip there (and all the trip back). They talked about it. Dr. Burke talked about it, anyway. Ways to get her life back. By life, of course, she means her job. It’s all she has left of her life anyway. But he wanted her to start taking things back. Reclaiming things. Doing things she liked, pre-shooting.

Going outside, in the city, now that her dad’s insisted she not stay at the cabin alone any longer for reasons neither of them are keen on mentioning ever again. But, getting out for more than just appointments her dad has to drag her to like a fucking preteen. Just to go grocery shopping. Reading her old favorite books (how can she, when they all look up at her with baby blue eyes and tell her what she’s destroyed). Asking for help when she needs it. Playing her guitar. Wearing her normal clothes. Talking to friends.

She’s not quite there on any of them. But she supposes clothing is the easiest to address. It would be, anyway, if she could even manage to dress herself in them, she thinks bitterly.

She could wear her best Bitch on Wheels suit and four inch fuck-me heels, but with one of those beige monstrosities strapped and zipped across her breasts, she’d still feel like everything’s been ripped out of her chest. Her independence. Her youth. Her snap and sparkle. Her ability to do her job or even function like a normal human. Her womanhood. Her sexuality. Her… partner. Whatever they have. Whatever they had, anyway. In spite of his confession, in spite of the flowers, she’s pretty sure anything she had with Castle bled out with most of her on the operating table, while her ex-boyfriends sterile hands were rooting around in her chest cavity.

Castle. How she misses him.

She frets and paces her apartment, half naked in stubbornness. Her clothing is one step to reclaiming her life. Ordering online would take days. She’s not wearing those stupid therapeutic bras any longer. She’s just  _not_. They’re insidious, hideous contraptions designed to rob her of herself and continually label her as Patient, not Detective. Not even Kate. If she could just go shopping without ending up crying in the bathroom or holing up in a corner spooking at shadows, she could get something nicer with a front closure. No unnecessary stretching of her injured side. But the thought of taking the subway makes her breath come short, makes her check her locks and stand in the kitchen wishing her father hadn’t poured every drop of alcohol in her apartment down the drain, the way she’d once (many times) done for him.

She could call Lanie and ask her to run the slightly embarrassing errand for her. Lanie has good taste, after all. But that would entail a none-too-subtle medical interrogation. She means well, Kate knows she does. But she’s a doctor, and she can’t turn her medical inquiry off any more than Kate can turn her cop instincts off. No, she doesn’t need an exam. She’s focused on being more than a patient today.

Ryan? No. No no no. She doesn’t want essentially her younger brother - even though he’s got 2 years on her - shopping for bras for her. She’s not close enough friends with Jenny to ask.

Esposito would have all the maturity of a 12 year old in a condom factory about it. Definitely not.

The list of people she knows is pathetically small. Her job doesn’t make her social scene exactly a happening place even on the best of nights.

 _Small risks_ , Dr. Burke said.  _Take small risks every day._

It’s a pretty fucking big risk by anyone’s measure, but maybe she’s killing two birds with one stone today. Maybe she feels brave. Or stupid. Or just frustrated enough with the beige monstrosities that she’s willing to approach some of the other orders. Talking to friends. Asking for help. Castle’s… a friend. She hopes he’s still that.

Her fingers dial his number clumsily. Her new phone doesn’t have his number first on her contacts list any more. It doesn’t quite have a contacts list, actually.

"Beckett?" he answers, confusion laced into his tone. Her chest goes tight. She shouldn’t have done this. She shouldn’t have disrupted his life. He’s probably just getting back to his old self. She shouldn’t drag him back into her shitshow. "Beckett? Are you there? Are you okay? Kate?"

"Sorry," she says, her voice nearly unrecognizable and childlike, "sorry, bye."

"Don’t!" it catches her attention as her thumb’s ready to press the End button. "Kate, please. Please don’t hang up."

She doesn’t know what to say.

"Are you still there?" Castle asks. There’s such hope in his voice. Like he’s been waiting for her call. Like he’s not given up yet.

"Yeah," she manages after a while.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah…"

Her face flames hot. It’s now or never. If she doesn’t ask him now, she’ll never be able to do it. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to face him at all.

Intellectually, she knows he’s a grown man. A grown man who’s been married twice, has a teenage daughter, and grew up surrounded by women in costume (and presumably, changing in and out of costume - which when she thinks about it actually explains so much). He’s not going to be immature about a bra.

Before her shooting, she’d fantasised often enough about dressing up for her partner in some kind of lingerie. The settings varied, but her fantasies quite often included his reaction to her in or out of something lacy and silky and sexy. If a glimpse of a plain black bra did things to him, like during the Russian Mobster Debacle or even the day at the Old Haunt, she could only imagine what something more purposefully provocative would do to him.

She knows it’s not that. They’re not there, yet. But maybe - just maybe - there’s a ghost of a chance. He’s not hanging up on her. He’s not yet given up on her. And maybe there’s still something there. Maybe the spark’s not yet out. And maybe this is a way to just go around a wall, rather than the near-impossible task of knocking it down like she’s been thinking of it. Stealth - not brute force. She kind of likes that idea.

Now or never, Kate.

"Castle…" he exhales audibly at her speaking again, "can I ask for a really, really weird favor?"

She can hear the crinkle of his grin over the line. “Weird’s my specialty.”


	2. a phantom of the fight

It's like he's fifteen again, tongue-tied and nervous waiting for his date to the junior prom. The imposition of her heavy painted steel door stares him down like a disapproving father.

Except he's not fifteen, and Kate Beckett is a hell of a lot more memorable than Becky Black, and scarier than any girl's father he's ever disappointed. And even in her injured state, she could kill him. She wouldn't even have to lift a finger. A few words are all it'd take.

Hearing no answer to his knock, he considers trying again, shouting in for her, but he hears a rustling. She's always so quick to answer. It distresses him to think that she might not do so any more. Even temporarily. It distresses him that any part of her has changed, though he knows it surely has. He thinks of running, briefly, but he's neither quick enough or cowardly enough to turn back now. She exists in this moment, to him, in a state not dissimilar to that of Schrodinger's most unfortunate cat – both alive and dead until proven one way or the other. If he does not observe her changes and injuries and vulnerabilities, they may or may not exist and as long as that door's separating him from observation, he can temporarily fool himself into believing she'll emerge unharmed and unchanged.

Last he saw her, she was small and matted but ultimately defiant, propped up in a hospital bed, telling him she needed her space. Hospital: temporary state. Hospitals are places of limbo. They either make people better or they cart them away in quiet indignity if they can't. She's not in the hospital any more, and she certainly isn't dead or sent home in anticipation of being dead. Therefore, she is all better. She has to be.

Except Castle knows that's very likely not the case. It took her long minutes on the phone just to say hello and how are you. Longer still for her to get out with it what she needed. As private as the errand was, he's not sure that's what bothered her so – it was asking for anything at all. But if she can be brave, he can too.

The door crawls from its frame. A pale, gaunt face peers warily from behind it. Castle considers running again. She's not like she was in the hospital. She's  _worse_. The hospital, he assumes, had her under guard, medication, care. And from the looks of her, an enforced feeding regimen.

"Hey," she mumbles quietly, nothing like his Beckett. Nothing at all. Still, she steps back enough to let him in, and when he can force his leaden feet to move, he approaches. It doesn't escape his notice, how quickly the door clatters closed behind him, the click and slide of a few different locks.

"Hi."

That was dumb. He can only stay quiet to stop the stupidity from pouring from his mouth, and he finds himself pressing his lips together to keep it contained. But not talking is not normal for him (as Beckett has reminded him – constantly – for the last three years) and absent that, there's nothing but an overflow of awkwardness. Kate eyes him with growing suspicion and he can't abide that either.

"How are you holding up?"

What a stupid question. He looks her up and down again, then finds a fascinating piece of artwork somewhere behind her shoulder to focus on, because maybe if he doesn't look hardly enough, he can pretend she's still Badass Beckett, ready to kick ass and take names.

"Seen better," Kate quirks her lips hollowly, but he counts it as a small victory. At least she's still being honest with him.

There's no graceful way to hand over the spoils of his quest. Neither is there any way to disguise – once she's looked in the bag – that he spent a good deal of time selecting the pieces. When he'd finally been able to pry her request out of her, she'd asked for something normal. He simultaneously fears and delights in the idea that he's landed somewhere above that mark. Four simple numbers, yes – plain black, plain white; black lace and white lace. But underneath those, well... the boutique he'd found had a lovely selection of styles with a front closure, and he'd always dreamed of being allowed to indulge a less practical side of the Detective that he was certain purred and scratched beneath the surface. He'd selected nothing lascivious, that could wait for another time, but the prettier pieces were certainly not solely practical.

Standing here in her living room, however, he panics. She'll surely know that the pieces were selected with more than just convenience in mind. He didn't think of it at the time, but the insinuation... he doesn't want her to think he expects anything. He doesn't – for once, he's thinking with the correct brain about it. She's healing. But she'll know when she gets to the bottom of the bag just what he pictured. It was slightly different, of course – he pictured her happy and whole and unchanged. Blissful delusion shattered, he momentarily sees her again. Changed, different, and healing – but never less beautiful. His heart is lodged between his back teeth to keep it from falling out his mouth. She'll know. She must know, whether she remembers him saying it or not...

Kate peers at him cautiously, waiting for him to make the next move. She looks as if a strong breeze would knock her down and privately, Castle wonders if she could get up.

Screw propriety.

Dropping the large bag he's brought, he takes two large strides to her. Castle's arms coil around her small frame, and he's painfully aware for long moments that she's standing still and frozen with no signs of life. He can't let her go. She'd fall over if he did, in the first, and second, he's fairly sure he'd crumble too.

It's tortuously slow. He hardly notices at first, the incremental way she leans into him, but her good arm soon hooks around his back, and at last her cheek rests against his chest.

How he's missed her.

"Shh," he soothes, though she's not said anything, nor in fact moved at all since she gripped him close. "You've got this."

Kate makes a sound into his shirt halfway between a bark of laughter and a sob, and he doesn't dare pull back yet. Wanting desperately to say something – anything - to her, to make her be her again, to bring Beckett back, something stops him. There aren't words for this and he finds himself at a significant disadvantage. Words have always been his trade and action hers, but he's run short of words and she's out of action.

"Thank you," she murmurs into his chest, and he's pleased that she's still not moved at all to escape his hold. In fact, she burrows in deeper, leaning her entire body into him as if seeking warmth she can't quite seem to manufacture for herself. So he holds her there, relishing her closeness, her trust in him, the assurance that though she's far from okay, for the moment at least she's not shutting him out.

It's something.

Eventually, there's a mutual, silent decision to let go. She pulls away, leaving a Beckett-shaped chill across his skin in the space where her body took heat from his for some time. He lets her decide what's next.

"Would you mind making some coffee?" she requests, looking anywhere but the dignified, cream-colored bag she's managed to pick up and is backing away towards her bedroom with.

"Sure," Castle answers quietly, turning away to give her privacy and a graceful out. He busies himself, simply happy that she's not kicking him out, and for the moment of quiet to gather his thoughts.

It's always been spartan, her kitchen. The personal touches notwithstanding, she keeps it neat and the only time he's seen her use it is to make coffee or heat up takeout leftovers, the few times he's been here before. But he notices the alarming changes immediately. First – everything is on the counter. Everything she uses, anyway. It makes sense that she keep it there, where she doesn't need to reach or strain, but in this case,  _everything_  consists of a canister of coffee, multiple mugs, and a box of Triscuits.

Mechanically making the coffee, Castle is sorely tempted to look in the fridge, but he's afraid both of what he might find and what he might not find. Among the things he's suspicious he won't find: the takeout tower he often teased her about. She lived on the stuff. But the coffee needs milk. Creaking the door to the fridge, his suspicion is confirmed. Two flavors of coffee creamer and a green apple, and a few jars of preserves and condiments. No telltale shrine to General Ming. Nothing that even kind of resembles a real meal. The freezer is no better. Half a dozen frozen dinners that look suspiciously as if they've been collecting frost since before that clear blue morning in May.

He scowls to himself, stamping down the impulse to call the senior Beckett and chew him out for not looking after his daughter properly. He's the only one's heard from Kate, it seems, and Castle knows that he's the one who retrieved her from upstate (and likely drove her there as well). But alas, that would solve nothing. And he knows blaming Jim is irrational anyways. Nobody – not even her father – can make Kate Beckett do anything if she's against it. Rationally, he's certain Jim led her to the water as best he could.

His first impulse is to call for something and refuse to leave until she's eaten a decent meal, but all that would accomplish is to make Kate dig her heels in. While stubborn in general is good, and in fact something he longs to see in her, there's a time and a place, and if he's to get her back to herself – he's determined he will – he can't have her stubbornness directed at him. Best channel it into other things.

She emerges fully-dressed and looking fractionally more like herself, save for the redness spread across her cheeks, up around her ears, and extending all the way down her collar.

"Thank you," she says again, taking the proffered coffee and raising it in toast, the understanding passing unremarked upon that her gratitude extends beyond coffee. Castle accepts it with a wave and a nod, drawing in the first sip of his own. It's not the precinct's espresso machine, a far cry and possibly undeserving of even being classified as coffee lest it insult the concept of bean water, but it's a distraction that's holding them together at the moment and he'll take what he can get.

Drinking in mostly-silence occasionally interrupted by talk of no consequence – the weather, Alexis and Martha, how the damn Yankees can't locate their own asses with a toilet seat this year (that makes her laugh and he's never been more pleased to hear that) – they drain their first cups to the dregs and linger around the kitchen island long after. Castle's mind works feverishly on a plan, and for once it seems solid.

He'll begin by prying Kate with better coffee than this. It's really not even a full step above monkey pee in battery acid and if nothing else, she should be drinking something better. Aside from that, it's an excuse to show up at the same time every day. She's not in a good way and he suspects she doesn't often leave the apartment except when forced to – she must still be having regular doctor's appointments, musn't she? She was shot in the heart not so very long ago – so routine is essential to easing her fears. As is reliability. The same thing, at the same place, at the same time, every day eliminates the unknown or anything that might scare her. And it's practical. Coffee (and, he adds on, breakfast) will at the very least assure him that she's getting a real meal minimum once daily and he'll get a better picture of her state and what needs to be done besides.

They come to a natural stopping point three-quarters of the way through second cups, a lull in conversation that says it won't pick up again today, and Castle knows - for once in his life - when to take his leave. He bids her goodbye and once she's ferried their cups into the sink and he's standing awkwardly behind her, she begins to fray. She gets stuck on a loop of bidding him goodbye and expressing her gratitude for his help and insisting on repaying him over and over as if she thinks she's a burden. Alarmed and not wanting the conversation to stress her any more, he orders her as playfully as he can manage to stop thanking him for running her errand for her – though he leaves off any innuendo about it; now's not the time – and just as she's about to close the door and lock up tight again, he stops her.

"Oh, and Beckett?" his use of her last name catches her, "I'll see you in the morning. 9AM, breakfast and coffee."

With that, Castle shuts the door and sidles off, giving her no chance to contest it and giving himself no time to lose his nerve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's probably obvious, but my grasp on time and my ability to write within it is as wibbly-wobbly as The Doctor's, so from here on out I'm not even going to try to estimate when I'll update this again – only promise that I will. Thank you all for your patience, support, and feedback! I answer all signed reviews, but to those who comment anonymously, please note that it's appreciated very much.

**Author's Note:**

> Will continue this one. One, maybe two more parts in the near future. All reviews answered. Thank you.


End file.
